Townsville - 16th September 2008

Townsville Car Kilometers: 178,534

Distance Travelled: 655km

Total Distance Travelled: 10,283km

Despite the fact that we had no tent to pack up in the morning, and that we had slept well in the caravan, we still didn't manage to leave Winton until about 10.00am. Mainly because of the bacon sandwich as a breakfast treat. It did take a while to get to us but they were so friendly in doing it we didn't feel the urge to complain.

Winton to Townsville was back via Longreach and then on a sealed but very patched and bumpy road to Hughendon. The Hughendon road was more like a single country lane only the same lane for about 250km's. This was made a little more exciting by the wide load coming the other way which at one point, while parked off the road on an embankment sloping down at a 45 degree angle, both Jemma and me thought the side of the car was going to be taken out.Luckily the Hughendon to Townsville road is one of the main West to East routes so although it was still a 2 lane road, it was wide enough for the Road Trains to get past without too much trouble.

We arrived at Townsville and fought our way through the road works to get to Rowes Bay and the camp site and going in to the office I made a new best friend. Luckily for me I had chosen to wear my West Coast Eagles top that morning and walked into probably the only camp site in Townsville with an ex Perth receptionist who happened to be a massive West Coast Fan. To put this in perspective it would be like wearing a Nottingham Forest shirt in somewhere like Norway and the receptionist coming from Nottingham and being a fan. After a footy related chat we asked for a site and after a bit of thinking she said that she was busy at the moment but she would make sure we had a site as I was a west coast fan. Sure enough we ended up on a nice site away from the main camping area under a tree. Thank you to the West Coast Eagles!

Townsville was only a stopover town for us. It has a population of around 160,000 but in the lonely planet the only 'sight' to visit is a generally average aquarium. Still we needed the time there to do a few domestic chores so booked a three nights. It had been the longest we had stayed in one place for a while and by the time we left we had clean clothes, a clean re-packed car, fully stocked food boxes, short hair (well I did at least), a holder for my collection of different 50c coins (yes I accept any mockery for this one!), Jemma's 3rd pair of flip flops and a new journal. For those reasons it was a useful place to stop.

We did manage to see a bit of the town. Unfortunately the city centre, or at least the Flinders Street Mall which all the brochures tell you is great, was half closed down for redevelopment so looked very tired. The barber was just off Flinders street mall so his cheerful nature, German/Bulgarian upbringing and life advice regarding marriage and children, at least made the trip worthwhile.

We drove up to The Castle Hill lookout which overlooked the town one evening. Castle hill is a large rock face overlooking the town with a sharp cliff face. Jemma said it reminded her of Gibraltar but as I haven't ever been I will have to take her word for it. Apart from nearly taking out at some of the many joggers running up and down the windy lane up there in the dark, the views over the town were brilliant and I got a few nice pictures but, unfortunately for Townsville, the town looked better from here than it did when you were in it.

On our last afternoon we had a walk along the strand. This is the road along the front and the beach and was like another city. There were pleasant trees and greenery and piers into the sea. Complimented with cafes and bars (we sampled the Greek cafe... very good if you ever go there) it was a really nice afternoon walk. The beach near the campsite was also nice but not built up. You can't swim in these areas because there is no coast guard and also (more importantly at some times of the year) there are no stinger nets to protect you from the potentially lethal jelly fish on this coast.

We also accidentally found the town common and drove through on the unsealed road until the road abruptly stopped. It was a bit more interesting than that makes it sound as it was through a relatively large area of bush land and we saw a kookaburra, lizards, eagles, cranes and kangaroos.

After a bit of map studying (made interesting by the wind) we opted to get all the way to Cooktown in the morning before the long run down the east coast.